


Homecoming

by Phantom



Category: Power Rangers Time Force, Power Rangers Wild Force
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 15:40:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantom/pseuds/Phantom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jen's coming home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheSecondBatgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSecondBatgirl/gifts).



They were ready. 

The fridge was stocked with beer to drink with the pizza and wine to drink with the cake, and the cake itself, rich and chocolate and drizzled delicately with _more_ chocolate, took up nearly the entire top shelf. Several take-and-bake pizzas were stacked atop each other on one of the lower shelves, which was ridiculous because there were only four of them and they didn’t really need five pizzas, but when someone wanted the red sauce and someone wanted the white sauce and someone went to buy pizza without realizing that someone else had already done so... These things just happened sometimes, and it was hardly like the food would go to waste. 

If anything, Taylor thought they could have done with another cake and some more flavors of ice cream in the freezer. Jen always spent her first week at home indulging in all the over-sweetened high-calorie foods that humankind would apparently do away with sometimes in the next thousand years. Wes was always happy to keep her company with an oversized sundae of his own, and if Taylor fixed herself an ice cream cone then Eric could usually be persuaded to join them.

No matter how wistfully Jen spoke of her home sometimes, Taylor was privately glad that she didn’t live there. It wasn’t really the sugar thing, because it wasn’t like she was Max, who would’ve lived off of jelly beans and an assorted rainbow of soda if Alyssa hadn’t been there to feed him. It was more the _idea_ of the sugar thing, and she wasn’t sure how much she liked Time Force itself. 

But she wouldn’t have minded the chance to visit, just once.

On the other hand, Taylor supposed, Time Force wasn’t _all_ bad, because they had permanently reassigned Jen to monitor the early twenty-first century. So Jen reported back to them and made a few short in-person trips back every year, and then rest of the time she lived in Silver Hills with their strange little family. 

Taylor hadn’t expected that the road she’d started on all those years ago would lead her here. But then, she hadn’t expected the Animarium, either, or Shayla, who she missed and would always miss. Afterwards... well, Alyssa had her students and Cole had his animals, Merrick had been swept away by a breeze up into the mountains, and the kids had gone off adventuring. Taylor had returned to the Air Force, but that had been the means to the end and not the end in itself, and having seen that particular mission through, her heart wasn’t in it anymore. So she left, first chance that she got. 

She came to Silver Hills on a whim, because why the hell not? Eric had told her to look him up if she was ever in the area, and she’d needed a job, so... she’d packed up and left Turtle Cove. Found herself a nice little apartment. Joined the Silver Guardians. 

She had to admit that realizing Wes and Eric had gotten together in the meantime had been a surprise. That they were both dating Jen too had been an even bigger surprise. To put it mildly.

It was still sort of weird for them too, Wes confessed to her one day over lunch, when they ducked out of the office to grab some pizza. Eric was too busy to join them that day, but Wes kissed the scowl off his face and promised to bring him back a slice. 

That was when her curiosity got the better of her. 

"So," she asked, as they waited in line, "how's it work with you guys, anyway?" 

Wes turned bright red. 

"No," Taylor hastened to say, because... no. "Not _that_." 

It was a new thing for all of them, Wes explained. He didn’t really do this, Eric’s relationships were few and far between but long-lasting, and Jen... Wes became visibly uncomfortable then, which only made her wonder more, but why press him for details when Eric would tell her everything later? 

"It was Jen's idea, really," Wes added. "I guess it's not so uncommon in the thirty-first century." 

That was another point in their favor, Taylor allowed. 

And then Eric went and asked her out.

Sometimes, she teased him because he ended up with the most partners out of this arrangement and who would’ve expected _that?_

Wes always cackled at that while Eric folded his arms and glowered, because he never saw what was so funny. “You’re just jealous,” he once told Wes smugly. 

“Of what?” Wes countered. He nudged Taylor with his elbow. “Of kissing her?”

Taylor couldn’t remember what she threw at him, but it was true. Wes was more of a little brother than anything else, never mind that he was actually a year older, and Jen was a best friend who she sometimes idly flirted with. She didn’t expect that to go anywhere, either, but who knew anymore? Maybe in another five years.

For now, she was happy with what she had, even when what she currently had was a headache from arguing with Wes over who was going to clean the kitchen and who was going to blow up the balloons for Jen’s welcome home party. Eric made himself scarce at the beginning of the argument, which at first she thought was a tactic to remain as impartial as possible. Then they realized that he’d just gone and blown up all the balloons himself, leaving them with the less fun chore. Wes grabbed the last pack of balloons and headed straight towards the sink. 

Taylor caught him by the back of his collar and yanked the balloons away from him. “And who’s going to clean that up?”

“It’s just water,” Wes protested. “It’ll dry. C'mon. It'll be fun.”

Which was true, but it was also true that if they had a water balloon fight without waiting for Jen, she would be grumpy for days and Eric would be grumpy no matter what, so they might as well save it for later. So they hid the pack of balloons behind the bookcase in the living room and then Wes sat to draw smiley faces on the balloons while Eric vacuumed the living room. 

Jen’s time ship would be at the beach at sunset. They left with plenty of time to spare and Taylor drove because Wes was fidgeting too badly to do it himself and, well, she liked to show Eric that she was a good driver, actually. He hmphed a lot from the backseat. She blew him a kiss in the rearview mirror. Beside her, Wes chuckled. Behind her, Eric sighed, but she saw the smirk he couldn't hide.

The three of them sat hand-in-hand and waited, watching as they sky deepened from blue to purple to fiery pink and the sun dipped below the horizon. The sky opened up right on schedule and Jen’s ship shuddered into view with a roar. 

They stood and ran towards it as she settled down into the sand, a gentle landing that was better than the first one she had made, Taylor had been told many times before. The door opened and the four of them rushed towards each other, meeting in an awkward tangle of hugs and kisses and laughter. 

"Hi," Wes murmured, hugging her from the side, arms snug around her middle. "Missed you." 

"Yeah." Jen covered his hands with her own, then wriggled gently out of his hold in order to kiss Eric too. "I missed you guys too." 

It was sort of a weird four-person embrace when Taylor stepped into it to hug Jen and kiss her cheek, because she felt Eric's hand settle in the small of her back as she did so and then Wes just tackled everyone from the side again, nearly sending them into the sand, but Jen laughed as they all staggered sideways and even Eric was smiling. 

They were together again. 

Jen was home.


End file.
